Archive for date:
March, 2010

Published on: Tuesday, 30 March, 2010

A fine analysis by Ted Nordhaus and Michael
Shellenberger of the way that climate science has been
distorted by environmentalism. They write:

"The result has been an ever-escalating
set of demands on climate science, with greens and their allies
often attempting to represent climate science as apocalyptic,
imminent, and certain, in no small part so that they could
characterize all resistance as corrupt, anti-scientific,
short-sighted, or ignorant. Greens pushed climate scientists to
become outspoken advocates of action to address global
warming. Captivated by the notion that their voices and expertise
were singularly necessary to save the world, some climate
scientists attempted to oblige. The result is that the use, and
misuse, of climate science by advocates began to wash back into the
science itself.''

Those of us who love science - the habit of licensed curiosity,
not the bureaucratic machine - have been increasingly dismayed by
the way that its high priests have been behaving over the climate
issue: trying to politicize, propagandise and polarize where
they should be questioning, debating and being awkward. The most
shocking thing to me about 'Climategate' was not the emails, but
the any-excuse-will-do reaction to them from the scientific
establishment.

Published on: Monday, 29 March, 2010

Chiffchaffs are the first summer visitors to arrive, around here
at least, and their distinctive song is hard to miss, and one day
near the vernal equinox suddenly there they are. I have
written down the date in my diary most years since 1990. Last night
I went back through the diaries and collated the data. It's hardly
scientific, but notice there is absolutely no sign of a drift
towards earlier arrival: if anything the reverse.

Published on: Thursday, 25 March, 2010

Genetic diversity within the Neanderthals is a more likely explanation

Woke to find the newspapers all claiming a new "species" of
human being discovered in central Asia. Here's the Guardian:

"The finding suggests an undocumented human species lived
alongside Neanderthals and early modern humans in parts
of Asia as recently as 30,000 years ago."

Leave aside the fact that it's just a bone from a little finger,
leave aside the fact that they have only sequenced
some mitochondrial DNA, not nuclear DNA. Assume, for the
sake of argument, that they have ruled out contamination. Applaud -
as we should - the achievement of recovering DNA from the fossil
and sequencing it.

Published on: Wednesday, 24 March, 2010

A new study reiterates a long-standing evolutionary conundrum

So Man flu is not a myth, because testosterone
inhibits the immune response.

This has been known to biologists for ages. In The Red Queen, I challenged readers to explain
why bodies should be designed that way: why set up an immune system
in such a way that it gets hindered by normal hormonal action? I
still find it baffling. Over the years readers took up my challenge
and wrote to me. They still do. Their answers nearly always boil
down to a version of this: to weed out weedy males. That is to say,
if males cannot both keep their testosterone levels up
and resist disease they don't deserve to contribute to posterity's
genes.

Trouble is, like all group selectionist arguments, it's
vulnerable to the evolutionary free rider. Along comes a mutant
animal that breaks the link between testosterone and illness and
hey presto it can breed away to its gonads' content, propagating
its subprime genes as if they were triple A.